Lion Heart ENCOURAGE - What God asks of us Pt2 - Faithfulness

Encouragement:

Hey Man of God!

Today we will continue on the topic of what God asks of us. In Part 1 we covered some general conversation around our spiritual walk and maturing in our walk with Christ. I then listed the 4 main themes of what I see in the Word of God as to what God requires of us.

Part one can be found here: https://www.hopenation.faith/post/lion-heart-encourage-what-god-asks-of-us

As a brief summary of Part 1:

As newborn Christians we start this journey with a lot of baggage, a lot of wrong practices and evil mindsets. As we walk this journey, this newfound way, this baggage slowly gets removed, and God slowly forms us into the Image of His Son.

Christianity is a growing relationship. Not a static religion. If our walk with God is static, something is wrong. If you’re not growing, you’re sinking.

As we grow, and as our ‘view’ of God and our experiential knowledge of God grows, one can’t but become more hungry for Him. When the work of Christ comes more and more into focus, one can’t but ask ‘Why?’. Why did He do that? And then our response to His sacrifice grows, and our hunger to respond grows. With that growing hunger to serve, know and love God, often the question comes to the fore is ‘how can I love God, or what does God ask of me?’

If we look broadly over scripture, we can see that there are 4 ‘responses’ that God asks of us:

• Love

• Faithfulness

• Holiness

• Trust

For the details on Love, please read through part 1. Today, I’d like us to look at Faithfulness. Here we are not speaking of God’s faithfulness to us, although we will look into this deeply to better understand faithfulness, but rather I want us to consider the faithfulness He requires of us. Our faithfulness towards Him.

Ultimately our faithfulness is in response to His. Really, everything starts and ends with God. 😊

Faithfulness can’t be over emphasised. If there is one thing that God requires of us it is faithfulness. Yes, I know Love is the greatest commandment, but flowing from that love is first faithfulness, as faithfulness comes from the heart, and God is after our hearts!

Over and over and over again we see how God laments Israels unfaithfulness, her adultery and her harlotry. He absolutely laments it. It is the one thing that time and time again destroys Israel.

To get an idea of how destructive it is let’s take a look at unfaithfulness first I’ll highlight how important and precious faithfulness is. Let’s really take our time here. These are weighty matters.

In short Unfaithfulness = DESTRUCTION

Isaiah: 1:21 (NKJV)

“How the faithful city has become a harlot! She who was full of justice! Righteousness once lodged in her, but now murderers.”

Isaiah 57:3-13:

“But you, draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the harlot. I will gather you, I will heap you up and roll you against the wall. And I will cast you out, and you will say: 'Woe to us! We are deserving of our own shame, for we have sinned.' We have been unfaithful to the Lord, our God, and have not obeyed His voice.'”

Isa 57:8 (NKJV)

“Also behind the doors and their posts you have set up your remembrance; For you have uncovered yourself to those other than Me, and have gone up to them; You have enlarged your bed and [a]made a covenant with them; You have loved their bed, where you saw their nudity.”

God will often use the words harlotry and adultery to illustrate the exact unfaithfulness He is referring to. Sometimes it was literally adultery, but other times is was adultery of the heart.

The holy act of marital consummation (Sex) establishes the covenant of marriage, conversely adultery is the act of destroying it. Adultery smashes the sacred and holy covenant of marriage. And thus God uses this illustration over and over again. Illustrating that He is covenanted to us, He can’t be separated from us, He has given Himself to us, but yet we smash the covenant tables against the bedpost of our adultery. This is no small matter to God!

Unfaithfulness/Faithfulness, by definition follows an agreement. An agreement to be loyal to a person or cause. Not to turn to the left or the right, but to be steadfast. First a vow, a commitment, then a journey of decision. A decision everyday of whether or not I will remain faithful to that commitment, that vow. And in this world, there are temptations everywhere. We are tempted to give our heart to another at every turn.  Will it be money, will it be power, will it be lust?

God is ultimately after our hearts. Everything He does is to gain our hearts, to save our hearts, or to protect our hearts. Who we give our hearts to matters to God, and thus He made a way for us to return our hearts to Him. JESUS is the way. We are that valuable to God!

Throughout our ‘journey of temptation’, whether we rise or fall, He remains Faithful, for He cannot and will not deny Himself. He will not forsake His beloved. That is Faithfulness.

Time and time again, Israel as well as us, respond to His ultimate Faithfulness with unfaithfulness. We are Israel who returns to idols made of burnt wood. We are those Roman soldiers that spit in the bloodied face of our Saviour. We are Peter who when pressed denies that we ever knew Jesus.

God, the High and Lofty One, He who lives in unapproachable light, Whose hand span can measure the universe, He Who is Holy Holy Holy chooses to remain Faithful to a weak and perverse humanity. He remains Faithful because this is who He is. He cannot deny Himself.

God is so loving, merciful and faithful. He is kind and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in mercy. From the covenant at Sanai to the death of Jesus on the cross, was roughly 1280 years. 1280 years of Israels unfaithfulness, followed by God’s Faithfulness. Man gives his heart to another, in His mercy God judges man, man eventually learns through pain and suffering. Man repents. Over and over. And through it all God does not leave their side. He stays right there, waiting for us to return. That’s Faithfulness.

Today, God is asking that we return faithfulness to Him in response to His Faithfulness to us.

So what is a practical view of being faithful to God? Basically, faithfulness is an out-flowing of what is in our hearts. Simple.

Predominantly it’s about our hearts. To whom does the throne of your heart belong? In your heart of hearts, who or what do you adore? As Jesus said in Matt 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

From the heart will flow actions consequent with whom/what we love.

In God’s heart, there is space for no one other than us. And He desires that same from us. Our hearts must belong to no one else but to Him.

This is the essence of faithfulness. From a heart like this will flow all the necessary ‘actions’ that define faithfulness.

We demonstrate our Love and appreciation through faithfulness!

Many of us, myself included, have been ‘adulterous’ towards God. We have given our hearts to another.

When we have been unfaithful, all He requires is confession and repentance:

• The word confession has the foundational understanding of ‘agreement’. i.e. I need to come to a realisation that I’m wrong and verbalise it. Admit it. Without admission change is impossible.

• Repentance is a turning around, but it has two aspects. First to turn away from sin, and then to return to God. It’s a double action word.

We all need change. We all need saving. The journey towards change involves ensuring that God is on the throne of our hearts, and seeking His face. ‘It is the love of God that leads a man to repentance’. Seeing His glory and Love changes us. Without beholding Him we will not change.

It is seeing His ultimate Faithfulness that draws us to Him, and our hearts then yearn to be faithful in return.

That’s it for now, we’ll delve into the others next time.

Blessings:

Today I’d like to speak a blessing over everyone that reads this: “May God bless you and keep you, May God turn His face towards you and give you peace.”

If this has blessed you, please forward it to another.

Your Brother in Christ,

Stanley 

No AI involved in this post.